Boil for 15 minutes 1.5 gallons of water, the honey, corn sugar, ginger root, gypsum, citric acid, Irish moss and yeast nutrient. Turn the heat off. If you are going to add fruit, then take a small strainer and fish out as much of the ginger root shavings as you can, but don’t worry. Then add your crushed fruit to the pot of hot wort and let it steep for about 10-15 minutes.
Pour the entire contents of the ‘wort’ (unsparged if fruit is added) into a plastic open primary fermenter and add about 3 gallons of cold water. When cooled to 70-78 degrees F, pitch the yeast.
After specific gravity has fallen tot 1.020(5) or within 7 days, whichever comes first, rack the brew into a secondary fermenter. If you use fruit, remove fermented fruit with a sanitized strainer or carefully manipulate siphon hose so that no fruit (or very little) passes to the secondary fermenter.
Age 1-1.5 months in the secondary fermenter.
Bottle with ¾ cup corn sugar. If herb, spice, or tea flavoring desired, add a strong strained tea to the finished mead at bottling time. In this manner, you may add the ‘tea’ halfway through the bottling process, enabling you to bottle 2 flavors of mead!
The flavor of mead will change with age. Harsh and sharp flavors will mellow. A tasting after 6 months will give some indication of your results. But a sparkling cold Barkshack Ginger-mead of 1 year or more – that’s heaven.

Looks like you already found the recipe before I got back to you. Sorry. I was busy making starters for tomorrow and the day after.

I highly recommend the Barkshack Ginger Mead. I still have a bottle or two that over 10 years old....New Years is coming up...

I just checked my recipes from 1994 on this and I noted that the ginger should be cut back by 1/3 in my 2nd batch of this mead. Ginger imparts a very bitter bite when young. A lot like Vernon's Ginger Ale if you've ever had that. After 6 months to a year it will become mellower than a normal ginger ale.

I've had a few from Rabbitsfoot Meadery ( www.rabbitsfootmeadery.com ), pretty good. I tried Chaucers (sp?), a little on the sweet side. I've also had a few from an orchard near my house ( aeppeltreow.com ). They do ship, but the online ordering isn't working right so you have to print out an order form and mail it in.

Beermaker, all - why the corn sugar vs. additional honey? Does using all honey as the fermentable do something foul to the taste? Just curious, as I may try this recipe for a mead contest in my local homebrew club (summer contest, so I hope it will be in good form by then).

Also, what is "yeast extract?" I use yeast nutrient, but never heard of yeast extract.

My husband and I brew mead. O.K. he brews, I just behave like the mad scientist adding odd ingredients. Bob says brewing mead is a lot easier than brewing beer. Also, brewing it at home makes it a pretty high proof. Mead can be sweet or dry. Depends on the taste of the brewer. I prefer a sweeter mead, Bob prefers a dryer mead.
We found that we can get a decent price at Costco for bulk honey.
Adding anything other than honey, water and yeast gives it a different name but it is just easier to call it mead.
Usually the benefit to mead is the longer you age it the better it tastes. Fruit meads can go off if you don't use them in a couple of years but many meads are at thier peak in five years. Most people can't keep the bottles long enough to have them age that long.
I'm hoping this year to make a flower mead with as many edible flowers as I can grow. It may have to be a couple batches that are blended together or we will add more flowers as the season progresses.
I've also been playing with liqueurs and want to something with flowers there as well.
Something Bob and I have found is that adding certain liqueurs to mead make for an interesting taste.

I'm a big fan of mead. I have a couple of batches going right now. Here is a really easy one that probably breaks taboo for many brewers. I saw it and despite my reaction to deviate I followed the directions and it came out shockingly good. It is a 'quick' mead that is drinkable in about two months but I hear ages very well. It is a lot better than many commercial meads.Joe's Ancient Orange Mead

And for those looking for commercial meads.. GotMead? has a list and reviews. The forums have a huge wealth of information if you're interested in making mead.